The snapshot of the scan is included (below) in case you want to build it yourself in Livevol® Pro.

The goal with this scan is to identify back months that are cheaper than the front by at least 8 vol points. I'm also looking for a reasonable amount of liquidity in the options (thus the minimum average option volume), want to avoid bio-techs (and their crazy vol) and make sure I'm not selling elevated front month vol simply because earnings are approaching.

Let's start with the Skew Tab, below.

I've included the front three months. We can see how elevated Sep is to Oct and Dec. The last two years the Oct earnings cycle for MWW have been 10-28-2010 and 10-29-2009. If it follows the same pattern, the next earnings cycle will be after the Oct options -- so in Dec (and Nov when that month is quoted). Looking to the 9 strike (which is ATM), we can see that both Sep and Oct are elevated to Dec. More on that later...

Now we can turn to the Charts Tab (below). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20 - blue vs HV180 - pink).

We can see a nice recovery of late in stock price -- sort of emblematic of the entire market's recovery.

On the vol side, we can see a dipping IV30™, which is now right on top of the long-term realized historical vol (HV180). At the same time, the stock has been moving at substantially higher short-term realized vol. Specifically:

IV30™: 65.05
HV20: 116.28
HV180: 64.80

So the stock has moved at approximately twice the implied over the last 20 trading days.

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below).

Potential Trades to Analyze
All sorts of calendar spreads are reasonable positions to examine. One-sided (calls or puts) and two-sided. An interesting approach could be a Sep/Dec calendar, and if that works, turning that into an Oct/Dec calendar. This position allows two sales of elevated vol versus a "cheaper" purchase of vol that owns earnings. Diagonals can make this trade more delta focused and less gamma risky (selling OTM vs owning ATM).

AT&T Inc. is a holding company. The Company is a provider of telecommunications services in the United States and worldwide.

The news driving the stock today surrounds a DOJ antitrust action blocking the company’s takeover of T-Mobile. A snippet from Briefing.com (www.briefing.com) is include below.

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T is under pressure this morning, down 3.3%, after reports surfaced that the US Dept of Justice has filed to block T's previously announced acquisition of T-Mobile (DTEGY -4.6%). The deal was, for the most part, expected to pass. Conversely, S (+6.6%) is spiking higher on the news. S has been one of the largest opponents of the deal, largely because the potential T/T-Mobile deal would create a virtual duopoly in the US wireless industry that S argued would make it difficult for them to compete. CLWR (+7.6%), a boutique 4G wireless company, is also showing strength on the news. On the other hand, VZ (-0.8%) is falling on the news, after opening up higher, possibly because it could be viewed as a target by the DOJ as the country's largest wireless company.
Source: Briefing.com
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While a bunch of companies were mentioned in that news, let’s focus on T and start with the Tick Chart for today only.

The top portion is the stock price, the bottom portion is the Sep monthly vol. The point here is simple, the stock and vol reacted abruptly on first announcement and now may have found a short-term equilibrium.

Let’s turn to the Skew Tab, next.

Note that the two expirations are the Sep 2 weeklies and the regular way Sep monthly. We can see the elevated vol in the weeklies to the monthlies. Specifically, the Sep(W) ATM vol is priced at ~34, while the Sep monthly ATM vol is priced at ~26. As of this writing, the weekly expiration vol is up 14.2 points (+63%) while the monthly expiration is up 6.1 points (28%). It’ that difference in vol gains today that accounts for the expiration-to-expiration vol diff (i.. the eight point vol diff comes from the move today).

Now let’s turn to the Charts Tab (6 months) below. The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20 - blue vs HV180 - pink).

We can see pop in the implied as it is now just below the short-term historical realized vol. Both of those measures are well above the long-term realized vol. Specifically:

IV30™: 27.54
HV20: 28.88
HV180: 16.56
HV10: 24.70

It’s worth noting that HV is calculated close-to-close, so the move today in T stock will not be reflected in HV until tomorrow.

Finally, let’s turn to the Options Tab.

I wrote about this one for TheStreet.com (OptionsProfits), so no specific trade analysis here. But, the position that had me most interested was the calendar spread as the vol diff is due entirely to the news that just came out.

What I don’t like about the spread is that should the stock recover the $0.89 it’s down today, and vols remain the same through Sep (W) expiration (i.e. Friday at close of this week), those Sep monthlies would be worth just a small amount more than the debit put on today. If the vol comes down in the Sep monthlies, those options would be worth the debit paid or less for the spread.

There’s a distinct possibility that the vol comes down in the back, and even if the weekly options expire worthless (i.e. shorts collected the full premium), that long put in the back may be a loser to the total debit. Having said that, I do believe that weekly vol collapses a bit -- especially in the downside puts.

CoreLogic, Inc., formerly The First American Corporation, is a provider of property, financial and consumer information, analytics and services to mortgage originators and servicers, financial institutions and other businesses, government and government-sponsored enterprises.

The company averages just 134 option contracts traded a day -- of which, just 61 are calls. The Livevol® Pro Stats Tab (a snippet of it) is included below.

Yesterday, the company traded 1,229 options -- all of them were calls, and all but 15 were concentrated on purchases in the Oct 10 and Jan'12 10 calls. Yeah, that's 1,214 contracts on daily average volume of 61, all on the long side, all in the calls, all in the same strike, all OTM. The options montage from yesterday (from the Charts Tab) is included below.

We can see there was some existing OI in both those lines. So, maybe the longs were just closing... right?... I've included the Options Tab snap as of today, below.

We can see the OI went from 720 (yesterday) to 1274 today in the Oct 10 calls. i.e. that's a 554 contract increase (on volume of 555). Similarly, we can see the OI went from 638 to 1238 in the Jan'12 10 calls. i.e. that's a 600 contract increase (on volume of 659).

The vast majority of those trades occurred in a four minute period, from 2:35p - 2:39p EST. At 4:01p the news was released. So, a 2000%+ volume day in two calls on the same strike, less than 90 minutes before an announcement, all done within 4 minutes.

Barclays PLC (Barclays) is a global financial services provider engaged in retail banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking and wealth management. The stock just came up on a real-time custom scan. This one hunts for calendar spreads between the front two months. Taken together with the stock and vol charts, this is an interesting one to examine.

The goal with this scan is to identify back months that are cheaper than the front by at least 8 vol points. I'm also looking for a reasonable amount of liquidity in the options (thus the minimum average option volume), want to avoid bio-techs (and their crazy vol) and make sure I'm not selling elevated front month vol simply because earnings are approaching.

Let’s start with the Skew Tab.

The shape of the skew for both months is similar – normal in that it’s bid to the downside. The scan is triggered because of the vol diff between Sep and Oct.

Now we can turn to the Charts Tab (below). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™- red vs HV20 - blue vs HV180 - pink).

Starting with the stock portion, we can see the stock drop of late. What caught my attention was the low print in stock, which was $9.53. More on that in a sec…

Turning to the vol side, we can see while the IV30™ has popped significantly, the realized short-term movement of the stock has actually been well above that level. Specifically:

IV30™: 76.61
HV20: 113.24
HV180: 50.30
HV10: 79.35

Interestingly, the IV30™ is now closest to the HV10 (the day trading day realized historical vol).

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below).

I wrote about this one for TheStreet.com (OptionsProfits), so no specific trade analysis here. But taking advantage of the vol diff between the front two months to the downside while also eyeing that $9.53 52 wk. low is an interesting position to examine whether that be in a plain vanilla calendar, or some sort of diagonal spread.

The snapshot of the scan is included (below) in case you want to build it yourself in Livevol® Pro.

The goal with this scan is to identify short-term implied vol (IV30™) that is depressed both to the recent stock movement (HV20) and the long term trend in stock movement (HV180). I'm also looking for a reasonable amount of liquidity in the options (thus the minimum average option volume), want to avoid bio-techs (and their crazy vol) and make sure I'm not purchasing depressed IV30™ relative to HV20 simply because of a large earnings move.

PANL actually violates the "Days After Earnings" filter, but the move of late isn't earnings related.

The PANL Charts Tab is included (below). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20 - blue vs HV180 - pink).

The stock has been exploding of late. On 8-8-2011, the stock was trading $22.73, as of this writing, with the stock price at $49.99, that's a 120% increase in 21 calendar days.

Interestingly, the IV30™ is only 96.19 while the stock has been moving at a 179 vol over the last 10 trading days and 165 in the last 20 trading days. The stock has moved 3.3% today, and that isn't included in the HV measures as HV is calculated close-to-close. In English, the stock has moved at a substantially higher realized vol than the implied.

We can see:
IV30™: 96.19
HV20: 165.05
HV180: 85.06
HV10: 179.39

Here's a snippet from The Motley Fool which explains some of the stock's recent move:

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What: Shares of OLED technology developer Universal Diplay jumped as much as 11.5% in intraday trading on heavy volume.

So what: This, my friend, is a momentum move of the purest kind. Universal Display had jumped more than 10% on three out of four trading days this week, all on reasonably substantial news, and now investors are piling on to ride this just-discovered bandwagon. All told, share prices have spiked by nearly 90% this week.

The front is elevated to the back, with an interesting vol diff opening up on the 60 strike between the front two months. Oct shows a notable upside skew to the 65 and 70 calls, creating an intra-month call spread purchasing lower vol than it sells, which is "unusual" when compared to "normal" skew. You can read about normal skew and why it exists here:Understanding Option Skew

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below) for completeness.

Note that the Sep 70 calls are priced at ~ $0.40 fair value -- so another 40% up from here, after the recent 120% move up. The ATM straddle is priced at ~$9.50 -- that's less than three calendar weeks -- so, while the implied is trading well below the short-term realized vols, it's still over 100 for Sep options.

The snapshot of the scan is included (below) in case you want to build it yourself in Livevol® Pro.

The goal with this scan is to identify back months that are cheaper than the front by at least 8 vol points. I'm also looking for a reasonable amount of liquidity in the options (thus the minimum average option volume), want to avoid bio-techs (and their crazy vol) and make sure I'm not selling elevated front month vol simply because earnings are approaching.

Let's start with the Skew Tab (below).

We can see the substantially elevated vol in Sep to Oct. Within Sep, there is an interesting upside skew going from the 20 strike up through the 22 strike. There's also an interesting spike to the Sep 19 calls while there's a small dip down to the Oct 19 calls, making a 23 vol point diff between the two months on that line.

Now we can turn to the Charts Tab (below). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20 - blue vs HV180 - pink).

The stock dropped from $38 on 6-1-2011 to $13.70 on 8-22-2011, or a 64% drop in less than three months. An earnings report and stock drop off of it is included in that price decline. Since 8-22-2011, the stock has recovered a bit to now over $17.50.

On the vol side, we can see the IV30™ climbing from 41.05 (on 6-1-2011) to now just under 83. In English, as the stock has dipped 60% (ish), the implied vol has doubled. Interestingly, the short-term historical vol (HV20) is actually above the implied. The long-term historical vol (HV180) is still in the upper 50's. Specifically:

IV30™: 82.98
HV20: 99.17
HV180: 57.92

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below).

Potential Trades to Analyze
Vol sales and vol purchases seem reasonable. That is, The implied is trading below the HV20, so a salient argument could be made to purchase vol -- the stock has moved ~10% today. Then again, given the long-term HV, a vol sale also seems like a reasonable trade. Let's focus on some calendar spreads -- a vol sale and purchase.

1. ATM Calendar
The trade with the most short gamma risk is the ATM calendar (duh). That 17.5 Sep straddle is priced at ~94 vol. The ATM Oct straddle (18 strike) is priced at ~73 vol.

This is an order flow note that has lead me to a trade. Let’s start with some option volume details. The company has traded 4,255 contracts on total daily average option volume of just 1,344. Every option has been calls; i.e. no puts have traded. The largest trade was a purchase of Sep 5 calls ~4000x for $0.20 (the trade broke into a 2,300 lot print and then several hundred+ prints). The Stats Tab and Day's biggest trades snapshots are included (below).

The Options Tab (below) illustrates that the calls are mostly opening (compare OI to trade size). But check out the OI in the Oct 6 calls; it’s over 16,000. I see some very active days where that OI popped several thousand on 7-15-2011 and 7-27-2011. Both of those OI rise days look like opening purchases. My best guess is the Oct 6 call OI is long and accumulated over the last month (ish).

Let’s turn to the Skew Tab snap (below) to examine the vols by strike by month.

We can see the skew between the four and five strikes for both months is essentially flat. Sep is elevated to Oct by about six vol points. Oddly, the vol dips to the Oct six calls, which is “normal” skew shape, but abnormal given the order flow in my opinion.

Check out the massively volatile stock price, coming from as high as $6.74 on 8-1-2011 to now below $4.50 in less than four weeks. We can also see the stock hit a bottom on 8-19-2011 of $4.02, and has since recovered (a bit). That price action includes a gap up on earnings. Hmmm…

I wrote about this one for TheStreet.com (Options Profits), so no specific trade analysis here, but, the order flow in this one is compelling, and the stock drop but recent recovery makes the ~$4 level feel safe(ish); like it would take a catastrophe to push the stock to say $3. This is when the stock dips to $1 and I feel stupid...